Re: t-and-f: Track and Field on television

[edndana]

I agree witha lmost everything that Keith pointed out, except the following:

 Track and Field has very high participatory  numbers so I would venture to
say that there is a ready made market which
 would be receptive and supportive of broadcasts in the proper format which
is simply SHOW THE MEET!

This is simply not true.  For athletes over the age of 20, track  field
(not road racing) has horrible participatory numbers.  And those younger
athletes are not a ready-made market, they are a group that has not yet made
up their mind and usually have many other interests.

Now, clearly NASCAR doesn't have high participatory numbers either, so it is
not a requirement for a sport to have high numbers in order to support high
TV ratings.  In fact, the only sport with really high adult participation
numbers that has high TV ratings is golf.  And I agree that showing more of
the action would improve ratings if it was done consistently and effectively
and packaged well.  But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that either
the mass of road racers or the high school tracksters are a natural for
improving our TV ratings.  Youngsters are never going to be a primary
audience for televised sports, nor would I want them to be.  Even the NBA
and MLB, which target kids more than any other sport (I'm not counting
wrestling as a sport here), spend only a fraction of their marketing
effort on kids.

Garry Hill has said before that USATF as an organization that tries to be
all things to all people is doomed to be mediocre at all of them.  We will
never have a really successful public face until we do one of two things:

1.Jettison everything that is non-professional from USATF and focus on
developing the elite/professional side of the sport like the PGA and NBA do.

2.Create the proper structure within USATF to separate the professional
stuff from the non-professional stuff as much as possible.  Right now, we
give lip service to this, but the net effect is that the organization spends
a lot of time and effort dealing with things that straddle the line between
the two, and it shouldn't have to.

I personally favor Option#2, but while I think neither option is actually
going to happen, option #1 might have a slightly better chance.  I am
largely involved with grass roots development in USATF rather than elite
programs, but I almost would rather see grass roots get cut off from the
elite part of the organization and get worse temporarily in order that it
could come back more effectively.  Because it sure is not effective now.

- Ed Parrot

t-and-f: Track and Field on television

[Keith Whitman]

We've hashed this out on the list many times.  The two main reasons that 
our audience is lower now is A) there are very few meets televised any more 
(at least not when the event actually occurs) and B) they don't show the 
meet.  Instead, you get tape delayed false starts, b.s. fluff pieces that 
are remnants from the up close and personal format.  People aren't 
watching because we can't just showed the meet.  Another related item that 
hurts our cause is rabbited races.  A big part of the allure for high 
school fans is the chance to see good old fashioned honest to gosh racing 
and you rarely see that on the professional level.  I admire records as 
much as anyone else, but I'd rather see a good close race.

People watch world cup soccer, NHL hockey, and NASCAR races because you get 
to see the event.  What we get however, is a race (or maybe 2-3 false 
starts) and several commmercials, an interview, several more commercials 
and rarely do we see any field events or a distance race in it's 
entirety.  Our sport SHOULD have the most mass appeal for any group of 
viewers because of the diversity of events.  You might not like one event 
area, but you might just watch all of a telecast to get to the event(s) you 
do like if you could be assured of seeing everything.  The networks would 
have us believe that the average American viewer has such a short attention 
span that they we don't want to see an entire event and I respectfully 
disagree.  I again reference soccer, hockey, and NASCAR racing to disprove 
that antiquated notion.  Track and Field has very high participatory 
numbers so I would venture to say that there is a ready made market which 
would be receptive and supportive of broadcasts in the proper format which 
is simply SHOW THE MEET!  Right now the package is only barely tolerable if 
viewed with a VCR remote in your hand to fast forward past the myriad of 
commercials.

I'll be interested to see how the broadcasts of the World Championships go.





At 08:29 AM 8/20/2003 -0700, John Schiefer wrote:
I have to agree.

I don't think it's fair to say that we've lost viewers
or audience members because of drug scandals or drug
use.
I don't however, believe that our audience is down due
to lack of, or poor, marketing.  Maybe TNF could do a
better job of marketing itself.  However, if TNF is
not marketing itself properly, let's name specifics on
how we can improve.
The bottom line, I think, is that TNF is suffering
because it's just not that much fun for the average
American to watch.  We're suffering from the fact that
there isn't much interest in our sport.
It's easy to blame USATF for it's poor marketing, and
they may be doing a poor job.  However, I think the
problem is not that we're not marketing the sport, but
that TNF is just simply not a mainstream sport that
the masses will tune in to watch.
Let's not try to make TNF something it's not.  TNF is
not ever going to be as popular as NBA basketball, NFL
football, etc.
Furthermore, let's not make USATF out to be the
scapegoat for decreased popularity.  Unless someone
can come up with a better solution for marketing TNF,
let's just enjoy it and let it be what it is.
Schiefer
--- dcw23 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Drugs have already torn Pro track apart.  Fans
 have abandoned our sport
 in
   droves, you just haven't noticed.  We are ranked
 about the 40th most
   popular sport, well below monster trucks.  Pro
 track is like the common
   drug addict and the solution is the same.  The
 first step is admitting
 we
   have a big problem.  Until we do that, the
 decline will continue.  Based
   on many of the responses to the African Standard
 article, we can't even
   discuss it, let alone admit there is a huge
 problem.
  

  Actually I think you are wrong here. If there is a
 problem with fans being
  turned off because of drugs it is probably
 exacerbated by the high standard
  of testing that we have in this sport. Most other
 sports pay only lip
  service to testing, if they even test at all,
 therefore, there are very few
  positives, therefore, the general public thinks
 that they have a drug free
  sport.

  That is of course assuming that your argument has
 any merit. All one has to
  do is look at the popularity of the Tour de France.
 It is enormous.
 Everyone
  know these guys use drugs and no-one really cares.
 The reason that track
 has
  lost popularity is due to the incredibly poor
 marketing that it has in
  contrast to the clever marketing of the ever
 increasing number of sports
  that compete to take its air time. Not only that,
 but when it does get onto
  the television, the package is pretty ordinary at
 best and will only appeal
  to the real die hard track fan.

  David


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